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U.S. Judge Removed by Senate

WASHINGTON—The Senate voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to convict a federal judge impeached by lawmakers on charges of accepting cash and other gifts from people with business before him.

U.S. District Judge G. Thomas Porteous, of Louisiana's Eastern District, is the eighth federal judge to be impeached and convicted by Congress, and the first since 1989. The vote removes him from the federal bench.

House members earlier this year approved four articles of impeachment against Mr. Porteous, who became a federal judge in 1994. The charges included running a kickback scheme to assign cases to certain attorneys, taking gifts from attorneys and bail bondsmen, filing for bankruptcy under a false name and lying to the Senate and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On Wednesday, senators rose one by one as their names were called and answered "guilty," with Mr. Porteous present on the Senate floor.

The verdict was 96-0 to convict on the first article of impeachment. It alleged that during the 1980s, while Mr. Porteous was a state court judge, he failed to recuse himself from matters involving a former law partner's firm who was regularly paying him cash in exchange for assigning cases.

Mr. Porteous's lawyers said that while the judge was at fault for bad judgment, there was no link between the cash and case assignments.

The required two-thirds of senators also voted to convict on the remaining three articles. Senators voted separately to ban the judge from holding future public office.

Mr. Porteous's lawyers said his actions were either unintentional errors or didn't rise to the constitutional standard of "high crimes and misdemeanors" required for him to be removed from office.

"This was a deeply disappointing result for the judge," said Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University who represented Mr. Porteous, in an interview. "We hope this case will not be precedent."

The judge was set to retire in December 2011. He had said he wouldn't try to return to the bench if lawmakers allowed him to leave office without being convicted.